It may seem ironic that Rousseau, who began his career by taking what we would now consider an arch-conservative position – that seeming progress leads only to moral decay – would end up becoming the supreme bête noire of so many conservatives.55 But a special vitriol is always reserved for traitors. Many conservative thinkers see Rousseau as having gone full circle from a promising start to creating what we now think of as the political left. Nor are they entirely wrong in this. Rousseau was indeed a crucial figure in the formation of left-wing thought.
